Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/543

 ryz

465

" The Palwiirs are a very numerous and powerful clan in tjie Faizab^d, ^ A'zimgarh, and Gorakhpur distdcts, whose detailed history is given in the Reports of parganahs Surhurpiir and Birhar, and who have already been alluded to in this paper. They affirm descent from the Sombans of Sdndi Pali, but the connection is denied by the chief of that clan, the E^ja of Sewaijpur, Hurdui. Popular tradition asserts that Pithiraj Deo Sombans

settled in this district six hundred and fifteen years ago, assuming the patronymic of Palwar, and taking to himself four wives (a latitude, I believe, only formerly allowed to Brahmans), viz., a Rajputin, an Ahirm,

a Bharin, and a Dain (demon or the lower orders.

fairy),

the three latter being avowedly of

From the first of them are descended the who represent the legitimate line. From

four Palwar the last are descended the Bantarria Palwar chiefs of Tigra and Morera. From the other two are descended Rdjput colonies which are to be found in A'zimchiefs of Birhar,

garh and Gorakhpur.

"Matrimonial alliances have been formed by such great houses as the Rdjkom/ir of Dera, with the impure Tigrii branch of the Palw^,rs, as well as with the pure Birhar branch and the strange thing is that, though the Raja of Dera has communion of food with both branches, the pure branch will not eat with the impure branch So it would seem that things that are equal to the same thing are not, in this instance at any rate, equal to each other !" Carnegy's Castes and Tribes of Oudh, page 51.

!

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To the south

of the district the

main disturbing

influence was that of

the Rajkumars and Bachgotis this, next to the Bais, aj umars. e is the most powerful clan in Oudh. lengthy account of it is given in article Partabgarh. The common ancestor was a Chauhan, Bariar Sah, who came from Mainpuri, it is alleged, in A.D. 1248.

,

A

His descendants have now multiplied, and, it is said, number some 70,000 Bachgotis, Rajkumars, Rajwars, and Khanzadas in the districts of Jaunpur, Azamgarh, Partabgarh, SuJtanpur, and Fyzabad in this district alone th£y number 4,900 Bachgoti and 3,900 Rajkumar. They have between them 1,0G5 villages, about a third of the old district they had, indeed, as appears from the Ain-i-Akbari, quite as much power then as they have now. They have always been a chivalrous race, tenacious of pergonal honour, and prodigal of their lives. One shot himself because he was not allowed to storm a fort before the arrangements were complete another in Dalippur, of Partabgarh, shot hiniself because he suspected a female relative of dishonourable conduct.

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The fourth son of Their internal divisions are rather complicated. Bariar Sah was Raj S^h. He had three sons (1) Raja Bhtip Singh Bachgoti from him descend the Bachgotis of Fyzabad, of Kurwiir, Bhiti, and Khajrahat, also the Khanzadas of Sultaupur through one of the family, Tilok Chand, who was converted to the Musalman faith. (2) Djwan Jaikishan Rae, the second, who settled in Patti Dalippur in Partabgarh. (3) The youngest and untitled spi?., Isri Singh his descendanfs settled in Sultanpur, and at length the cadet branches, finding themselves cro>vded south of the Gumti, crossed into Alcjemau, called themselves Rdjkumars, and founded the great houses of Dera Meopur and Ndnemau. The history of the Rajkumars now belongs ij^ore properly to the Sultanpur district, to





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